Fallen From the Sky
by K. Cloak
Summary: The Space Cases crash on an alien planet with no money, bills to pay, and a new and deadly enemy
1. Prologue

Fallen From the Sky  
  
Disclaimer: This story has a little bit of bad language, a lot of violence, and some 'graphic content.' Reader discretion is advised. OK, enough BS. I also did some character changing so please do not get offended that Suzee pretty much doesn't exist here, or that Radu grew some balls (just kidding, he had them before). Also, I don't own any of these characters or the Christa, and I thank the creators for lending them to me for the time being. I'm not making any money on this, although I do accept reviews!  
  
Prologue  
  
From the personal log of Commander Goddard (kept on audio disc)  
  
June 23  
  
It's been five years today since we left home.  
  
...  
  
pause recording.  
  
...  
  
Damn, I don't know what to say. I was just thinking the other day... yesterday, how the crew has changed so much. I mean...  
  
...  
  
Damn  
  
...  
  
The first time I set foot on this ship, the thoughts going through my mind were bad ones. I mean... I was pissed. And scared. Heh... Teresa would never have believed that I was scared, me, The Great Commander... but hell, I was. For all I knew, those kids could have been dead... or starting a war inadvertently with some new species... and if they were fine, it could still mean what was left of my rank if they got in trouble. Because I was in charge. But...  
  
...  
  
They're all so different now. I was going to say that yesterday, I called Radu "son." Hah... And he just looked at me like... I don't know... like he believed it. He smiled, damn... He's changed a lot since that first day. Five years like this, he's gotten something he never had before... he's got confidence. I honestly believe that if we ever make it home, Radu will make captain within ten years, racism and all. And damn... he looks* so old.* I mean I always knew Andromedans aged quicker than us but he looks almost as old as Teresa! And he's only 16... he could be my son.  
  
...  
  
Harlan's done the opposite I guess. He's 23 now. That cocky overconfidence he had in the beginning has faded. Not entirely of course! I hate to call them "kids" because they are all adults now, but those kids can still pull off the strangest pranks on TJ! Heh heh... she would kill me if she ever found out how much I enjoy those pranks... But back to Harlan, what was I saying... Oh yeah... the overconfidence has turned into a steady assurance with a touch of sarcasm. It's amazing.  
  
...  
  
I would like to say for the record that I hugely underestimated the intellects of both Rosie and Bova. Just because they look like kids. They still do! Not a physical change in each of them, but I think they have the oldest minds on this ship... or anywhere near here. It still freaks me out after more than a year seeing Rosie and Radu walk down the ship's corridor together... he looks like he could almost be her father. But I suppose they think it looks just as strange seeing Teresa and I together. Damn me and my tangents! I was talking about Rosie. Heh, I am trying to make a profound, sickeningly sentimental entry here and I go off on tangents about lovers. Rosie has been a great help to us all this time...I can't think of a crew member who hasn't been saved by her at least once. Her too... She is a great gift to this crew, like a fire in a cold, dark night... Was that poetic? Well she is. Bova has gotten over her, although he is as gloomy as ever. Sometimes I see him and Radu up late in the team room or the galley talking about old times and he smiles...But it's a rare thing. I think the worst thing a Uranian ever wants to see is all of his bad predictions coming true and Bova's been through too many true predictions in these years. But he's grown too...his belief in all of our impending deaths is stronger than ever, but he no longer sits there and talks about it, giving up in the process. He is a brilliant scientific mind. When he has an idea about something he says it, although he never believes it will work. He's saved our lives more than once with his ideas.  
  
...  
  
Teresa I love. That's all. She is still the fainting queen but did you know it has a reason? You? Who am I talking to exactly? Oh well...turns out her mom was a telepath. She's latent but when she picks up too much she just shuts off. Or if she sees the latest ...heh... alien "pet" Rosie has brought aboard to study. Same old woman but I love her very much.  
  
...  
  
Then there is Catalina... and her daughter. Cat had her three months ago, her name is Titania. Named after Cat's home and one hundred percent Catalina genes... it's weird. The kid is already WALKING! Cat still talks to Suzee, but not much when she is awake anymore. She told me a few weeks ago that the only time she dreams, still, is when she is on Yensid watching Suzee work. Different time shift... It's wonderful to have her back, after more than two years without her. And she never fights with Harlan... ever. They get along fine! Which is scary.  
  
...  
  
And then there's the old Dog, me, Seth. I have more gray hair now but at least I haven't lost any of it yet. What am I saying, Yet, I will NOT be losing my hair. Teresa says that every female relative I have carries at least one balding X chromosome but I say you can't trace back to the stone age. Aw well... I guess I grew up some too. 


	2. Part 1 - Flying Blind

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part One: Flying Blind  
  
It was the first time an alarm had gone off on the Christa for nearly a month, and the piercing noise brought an almost-forgotten sense of pain to Radu for the few seconds it took him to adjust.  
  
Damn... I thought we might break the record that time. He thought. Guess not.  
  
[pic]  
  
"What's going on?" he said as he slid into the Command Post. Harlan looked over at him quickly from his position at navigation. Short, long hair, steely eyes... very quiet voice. Enter the sixteen-year-old Radu.  
  
"I don't know. I got in here a few seconds ago and couldn't find anything wrong," he said, confusedly searching the Navigation panel for anything he had missed. The two were alone for the time being.  
  
"Have you checked the readout from the other stations?" Radu asked, heading for the Engineering console.  
  
"Just Engineering, there's nothing wrong at all."  
  
Radu left Engineering, quickly searching the other panels. "There's nothing wrong!"  
  
"There has to be something wrong."  
  
"Of COURSE - umph - there is something wrong," said Bova, spilling into the Command Post in nothing but his pajama pants and socks. "The alarms never go off if there is not something wrong. Did you check all the panels?"  
  
"Yes," said the other two.  
  
"Then they are malfunctioning... the air in this ship is full of electricity." As if in agreement, Bova's antennae briefly crackled blue for a split second.  
  
"Screen says 'everything's OK, guys, your orbit is nice and undisturbed,'" said Harlan, still fruitlessly scanning Navigation for an error.  
  
"Orbit..." Everyone turned to Radu. "We are NOT orbiting ANYTHING!" Fear had finally replaced confusion on Radu's face as he realized his senses were telling him something different from what the screen and instruments were. "We're closing in on a gravity well the size of Earth!"  
  
"Well what do I do!?" yelled Harlan, practically jumping from Navigation to helm.  
  
"Well if we are falling then we are probably getting closer to the planet we were orbiting, meaning that the logical thing to do would be to fire the atmospheric jets and increase altitude. I think Radu should take helm, actually."  
  
Radu got to the helm almost as fast as Harlan had, barely making it before the ship's gravity shifted wildly to the right, turning the floor into a thirty-degree slope. Harlan and Bova tumbled to the far wall.  
  
"Radu, just get us to land!"  
  
Radu said nothing. He closed his eyes, blocking out the inaccurate viewscreen picture of space and a slice of orbited planet. He felt the gravity of the ship pulling down at one gee; he felt the gravity of the planet pulling to the side almost sixty degrees from the correct plane and at one-point-three-seven-four- one-repeating gees. In is mind a picture formed of the Christa falling at an angle with the orbiting jets still running, falling down onto a flat surface, hard, uninteresting, a plain perhaps, but they were leaving. He pulled the controls with his eyes closed, righting the ship first, then moving down in an arc, returning to the flat spot they had passed. They were still falling... but falling straight instead of tilted. The ship's gravity turned off as the external gravity was registered and suddenly Radu could feel their motion in his stomach as well as his mind. The term "vomit comet" flitted through his brain as he managed to fire the retro jets once before they hit hard. Hard enough to throw and Andromedan out of his spot at helm and several feet beyond. Hard enough, actually, to knock said Andromedan into silent unconsciousness. 


	3. Part 2 - What Alarm?

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Two: What Alarm?  
  
Titania wailed. It was the first sound Catalina heard when she woke up. A screaming Titania was reminiscent of the sound of shearing metal and could wake the dead, not to mention a mildly concussed Catalina.  
  
"Hush, shhh... it's OK" said Catalina, stumbling to her crib. The stars in her vision made her stop for a few seconds, but then they faded.  
  
Cat had been woken up when she was thrown violently out of bed by a sudden gravity shift. She had known something was wrong, so she had strapped Titania down to her crib, having a terrible time maintaining her balance on the thirty-degree slope.  
  
"Grozit, am I glad I strapped you down, kiddo! I didn't even hear an alarm!"  
  
[pic]  
  
"Miss Davenport! Are you all right?"  
  
"Yes dear... Although I do believe I may have hurt my arm when I was so unpleasantly thrown out of bed and then thrown back into it!"  
  
"Thank God! I thought you might have been killed!"  
  
Rosie helped TJ Davenport up from next to the bed in Medlab she had, indeed, been thrown out of and back into (right on her arm) in the crash. Rolling Davenport's sleeve up, Rosie noted the forming bruises, but a quick scan said that was all that was wrong with her.  
  
"Do you know what just happened?" asked Rosie, trying to tie a heat-proof bandage around the hand she had cut on a broken beaker. "That gravity change must have been caused by a really big object! Did we get too close to the moon of Derez?"  
  
"I surely do not know," said Davenport, taping the bandage for Rosie. "The door and jumptubes aren't working though..." She frowned deeply as the fading shock allowed visions of death, destruction, and hostile aliens to fill her head. "Do you think we are under attack! And here we are stuck in the Medlab with no way out!"  
  
"It's OK, Miss Davenport, I can melt us out if you really want to. There were no alarms, it was probably a malfunction. I'm sure we'll be all right."  
  
"Please do... I can't stand it in here not knowing what has happened to the rest of the crew."  
  
And Seth, she thought.  
  
[pic]  
  
Seth Goddard lay on the floor in his quarters, soundly sleeping. He used to fall out of bed all the time when he was younger, and that surely hadn't woken him up. Neither had rolling across the floor to the far wall, apparently. Or rolling back to his bed when the ship hit the ground.  
  
[pic]  
  
"Radu! Radu, wake up! Come on, man!"  
  
Harlan and Bova kneeled on the floor where Radu had fallen after being thrown from helm. Apparently, being the only person standing at the point of impact had made him the new Farthest Thrown Andromedan for the year.  
  
"Oww..."  
  
"Come on, man, wake up, you brought us down great." Well, personal injuries aside. "I can't believe how you flew blind like that."  
  
Radu sat up slowly, blinking as his vision tunneled and then slowly returned to normal. He looked groggily from Bova to Harlan. "Some vomit comet huh" he mumbled.  
  
"What?" asked Bova.  
  
"Huh? Oh, nothing. Could you guys help me up?"  
  
"Sure thing," said Harlan, as he and Bova each grabbed an elbow and pulled Radu to his feet. They waited a few seconds before letting him go, but he seemed all right.  
  
"Well, all crashes aside, I guess this could have been worse," said Bova. "We could have all died... instead the lights are still on, the three of us are just bruised... where the hell is the rest of this crew! And where is my shirt!"  
  
Harlan had to smile at Bova. Crisis past, Bova had already reverted to his former grouchy self. A woken-up Bova was a grouchy Bova.  
  
"You're right... I think I am a little more than bruised... Goddard is in his quarters, Rosie and Davenport are headed this way, Catalina and Titania are trying to get out of her room, and you are here, Thelma is offline and standing in the corner.... Your shirt... your shirt is probably on the floor... in our room... yeah that's it...."  
  
They barely managed to catch Radu as he fell again. After all, repeated head traumas can cause brain damage.  
  
[pic]  
  
"An hour in the tank and he will be fine," said Rosie. "It's a moderate concussion but not anywhere near fatal."  
  
The collective crew of the Christa stood in the Command Post, with the exception of Radu, who was in Medlab. The viewscreen now showed a vast stretch of desert plain and an expanse of harsh blue sky.  
  
"That's good!" said Harlan. "We though he was fine until he started talking like a drunk."  
  
"Harlan!" said Catalina.  
  
"It was just the way he sounded. Geez!"  
  
"Hush up, you too," said Bova. "Planet-based authorities will be here in about ten minutes to help us out." He was now in full uniform, and grouchier than ever.  
  
"What happened anyway? To the Christa, I mean? I never even heard an alarm," said Davenport from her seat at the Andromedan-less Navigation post.  
  
"Apparently, the extended orbit we were in caused a glitch in the ship's Navigation and visual playback; all of the sensors were on a playback loop which is why they showed normal. The alarm that went off was a fluke, we should all be dead now."  
  
"It's a virus in the main computer," said Catalina. "We have probably been carrying it for ages, since this is the first extended orbit we have been in for such a long time. Suzee says she has seen this type before and it can be cleaned out just by deleting the code when it's found. You can all be happy that it is not a self-perpetuating virus and can be removed so easily."  
  
"Yeah well such a simple virus can still get us all killed."  
  
"Bova... go back to sleep," said Rosie. "We can handle the authorities."  
  
"Gladly."  
  
[pic] 


	4. Part 3 - Pay Your Bills

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Three: Pay Your Bills  
  
"50,000 klarns for the repair to your hull, 20,000 klarns for repair to your engines, 1,000 klarns for one of the computer specialists to clean that self-perpetuating virus from your computer," Goddard thought of Catalina. "And a hundred-thousand klarn fee for the resulting damage to the area. We will put you up in a housing facility in Toloch for 300 klarns a week if you wish, or you may remain on your ship."  
  
I hate lawyers thought Seth as the Derezian woman handed him his "bill."  
  
"Do you require a currency exchange?"  
  
"Uh... Actually... we are kind of low in the 'currency' department."  
  
"Are you unable to pay for damages?" The woman's tone was clipped and short, perfectly lawyerlike. She belonged on Earth.  
  
"At this time, yes..." said Goddard, wincing at her tone. He felt like he was being chewed out by the principal in high school.  
  
"Then you will have to remain on-planet until you are able to pay your fees. Do you wish for the work on your ship to commence at this point?"  
  
Why not, thought Seth. We're screwed anyway.  
  
"Yeah, sure," he said. "Will we be able to find employment in the city, Toloch?"  
  
"Yes, the laws here regarding immigration and work will not get in your way. And you pronounce that city "tah-LOCK" not "TA-lock"."  
  
"OK."  
  
"Good day, Commander Goddard. We will send an escort to bring you to Toloch, and your stay in the city will be paid for by us for the first week."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
[pic]  
  
Goddard stepped into the Command Post, where the rest of the crew awaited news.  
  
"We're getting screwed by the government," said Goddard. "If the rest of Derez is like this we'll soon be paying body parts in taxes and eating at McDonald's."  
  
Harlan and Davenport smiled at Goddard's Earth reference.  
  
"Everyone, pack up. We're going to the city, Ta-LOCK, to get bad jobs and pay for our damage to local wildlife." His tone was every bit as sarcastic as that of Bova, who had been woken up for the second time in two hours to hear the news. "We're probably going to be here a while."  
  
[pic]  
  
"Well we sure aren't setting the government back too much by staying in this place," said Harlan, setting his pack down on the floor. The room he stood in was the epitome of crappy motel rooms. His room adjoined to Radu's on one side and Bova's on the other, with Goddard opposite him. In the middle of the four rooms, set in a square, was a single bathroom with a very old shower and a VERY old toilet. The three women were in the adjoining square, with Titania in Catalina's room. The floor squeaked when he took a step towards the bed.  
  
"At least your bed can hold your weight," said Radu, walking into the room from their shared door. "I'll be sleeping on the floor. And yours squeaks."  
  
"Yes, I know."  
  
"Oh well..." Radu sat on the edge of Harlan's bed, sinking down to the frame. Harlan, next to him, raised up a few inches. "At least we are in a block to ourselves."  
  
"Yeah... Hey, Radu?"  
  
"Yes Harlan?"  
  
"That flying you did earlier was amazing. I mean, I never would have known what to do in a situation like that. We all owe you one."  
  
Radu smiled slightly. "Thanks Harlan. You know it was just because I can sense my surroundings. I'm sure if you had been in my place, you wouldn't have been thrown clear across the Command Post when landing!"  
  
"Maybe if I had stayed Andromedan..." The two laughed together.  
  
"Man, five years ago could you have seen something like this?" asked Harlan.  
  
"What, not complaining or even freaking out when we crash on an alien planet and are stuck there indefinitely?"  
  
"Well yeah... that too I guess! But I meant this, just us two sitting together laughing at inside jokes and getting along."  
  
"Not in a million years!"  
  
[pic] 


	5. Part 4 - Why Don't You Get a Job?

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Four: Why Don't You Get a Job?  
  
The crew of the Christa converted Titania's room, the fourth in the women's block, into a meeting room of sorts. The bed, with help from a resident Andromedan, had been propped up against the wall and Catalina had donated the extra mattress to Radu, who just barely managed to avoid hitting the bedframe with two. Derezians, he thought, must be a lot lighter than Andromedans, or even humans.  
  
The seven people plus one cloned-spliced baby sat in this room now, barely managing to squeeze in and sit on the floor. The topic of conversation: employment.  
  
"We have an advantage, at least," said Rosie. "All of us have some physical ability that can be used to get a manual-labor job."  
  
"Except the humans," mentioned Bova. "And manual labor is pretty much ruled out for them in more than one gee."  
  
"That's OK!" said Rosie. "You guys will be able to find jobs anywhere in this city! They don't have to be manual."  
  
"Manual will pay more than fast food," said Harlan. "But I guess I will have to practice saying 'Do you want fries with that?'"  
  
Radu and Catalina looked at Harlan strangely.  
  
"We don't know the language," said Catalina. "How are we supposed to get a job if we can't communicate?"  
  
"How do you think I managed to talk to them?" said Seth. "Fifteen minutes plugged into a thought machine and you'll have a sixth-grade vocabulary. Wonderful invention it is, I wish we had technology like that but it's strictly government-regulated. It's what they did to me first thing, and Radu while he was in the tank."  
  
Radu looked at the commander with curiosity. "They did *what?*"  
  
"That's why you were in for 2 hours instead of one. I figured it would be easier to get it over with then, and you got a longer session anyway. Usually you have to be awake for it, but since you're a latent telepath yourself they said it would work anyway."  
  
"I can't speak Derezian..."  
  
"Not until you hear it, you can't."  
  
Radu shrugged. He'd had worse things in his head than foreign languages. "What about everyone else?"  
  
"That wonderfully charming woman who gave us our Monstrous Bill will be coming to this place tomorrow to get you all charged."  
  
"Love the sound of that," said Bova.  
  
[pic]  
  
"This city is huge," said Rosie, looking up at the buildings towering over her head.  
  
"Yes, it is," said Radu, grasping her small hand in his. "Must be full of dangerous people too," he said, looking at her small, young-looking body.  
  
"Oh Radu, don't you become Mister Macho Protector. I can take care of myself, you know. Not many people would like to attack a girl who can burn a hole through them."  
  
"I'm still going to worry about you. A lot of people are going to think you are a helpless little girl."  
  
"I'm two years older than you, Radu."  
  
"Yeah, but I look fifteen years older than you."  
  
"Oh, let's not argue, OK?"  
  
"OK... I wouldn't want to argue with you anyway. But if anyone tries to lay a finger on you, I'll break their arm."  
  
Rosie looked over at Radu. He had changed in appearance since she met him in Starcademy over five years earlier, but he still tended to worry. She thought, though, that some of Harlan's confidence had worn off on him. This Radu would be willing to fight for her and not be afraid.  
  
"Thanks. I love you, Radu."  
  
There, the smile. Rosie loved Radu's smile.  
  
"Yeah, I love you too, Rosie."  
  
[pic]  
  
The next evening, the crew of the Christa sat in their makeshift gathering place, eating fast food from the joint where Harlan now worked. Radu and Rosie had both gotten jobs doing lowly construction jobs, Rosie helping several other people to weld metal beams together, and Radu, with the help of an alien woman, loading the welded beams onto a truck and unloading fresh supplies. Goddard and Davenport had been reduced to cleaning personnel at a nearby hotel, and Catalina, unable and unwilling to leave Titania alone, had gotten a bottom-rank, new-kid job working at a multiracial (damn was it multiracial) day care center where nobody EVER mixed up the kids. Bova had snagged the best temp job of them all, talking an electrical repair crew (the kind that did dangerous, high-voltage stuff) into letting him join. Since he could take an electrical jolt higher than the repair crew could with safety gear on, he had been hired as their canary-in-a-coal-mine, testing switches and wires for current before the others got to work.  
  
"Only got zapped three times today!" said Bova, antennae crackling slightly. "The last one would have killed any of the guys but I took it like a MAN! Hah!"  
  
"Are you sure you are all right?" asked Radu, who could hear Bova's rapid pulse.  
  
"Well, to be honest, I think that last one was a little too much, but I'll be fine! It was a fluke anyway, the first two didn't even hurt!"  
  
[pic]  
  
Xenia looked down on them... the two aliens, walking alone in the early morning darkness to their new jobs. The taller one was strong, with a lot of mass... the smaller one not as strong but with internal energy that burned at her senses. Either of them would be perfect to siphon. A way off of this blasted, awful planet, on to new solar systems, new planets, new crimes to commit. Perfect.  
  
Xenia jumped from the fire escape of the old warehouse she was living in and began to follow them. Not today, she thought. But later... later, when they are going to leave... later.  
  
She set off after them. 


	6. Part 5 - Something Wicked This Way Comes

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Five: Something Wicked This Way Comes  
  
seven weeks later  
  
Radu walked the streets of Toloch's warehouse district. The time was somewhere near midnight in Derez's twenty-six-hour day. Rosie, that day, had had an earlier shift than Radu, and had gone home hours ago. Radu, accustomed to the loud city, had tuned out any sounds above a footstep, and so did not hear the heartbeat of the dark figure a block away, perched on a fire escape.  
  
Tonight is the night, thought Xenia, watching Radu come closer. Her current form was that of a Meridian female: tall, strongly built, complete with body armor, gun (for threatening purposes only, however), and a very small needle-knife with the fluid canisters full. Xenia was proud of her current body: she had stalked the streets for almost a week before spotting the Meridian alone on a side street. She had drained the Meridian until there was nothing left of her but bone, nerve, and the thinnest covering of skin, and had tied her twenty-pound corpse to a cement block and sunk it in the nearest river.  
  
And now Xenia had the Meridian's body, her DNA, her likeness, and most importantly, her strength.  
  
Radu heard the sound of a body dropping to the ground almost silently when he was halfway to the corner. He froze, extending his hearing until he was sure of the presence of a large person, four lungs, two hearts, directly in front of him. Beyond the reach of the streetlight's glow.  
  
"I hear you!" he said. "I know you are there so you might as well not even bother with the stealth part."  
  
"All right," the figure said, the high voice sounding seductive and insane. "I was going to attack you when you passed me, but since you know I am here, I'll show you my face." The voice hissed slightly on the "s" sounds, reminding Radu for a brief moment of his old enemy, Shank. "Anyway, I worked hard to get this body... you might as well see it before I kill you."  
  
The figure stepped into the streetlight's circle of illumination. It was a tall woman, six and a half feet perhaps, very muscular, with bright red hair that fell in tangles just past the shoulders. She was wearing heavy body armor on the chest and torso, the rest of her body covered in almost skin-tight pants and top, most likely a plastic. Her skin was black, not what Harlan would call "black" which was really brown, but true black, the lips a painted red shade, the eyes burnt orange irises surrounded by the only white on her body. Gun strapped to her hip, a large one at that: a projectile weapon, not an energy weapon; meant to kill, not stun. Something in a case strung around her neck. Gloves with a bulge at the knuckles: they were probably lead-filled.  
  
"Name is Xenia. I want you to know it so you can beg and scream for mercy later."  
  
"What do you want." Radu said. The two of them stood twenty feet apart, facing each other.  
  
"I'm a predator by nature. I want you."  
  
Almost faster than the eye could follow, Xenia lunged at him. Running full speed, she jumped in the air, landing a solid kick in Radu's chest. He was pushed backwards, but did not fall. Surprise and pain showed on his face.  
  
It hurt, he thought. She hurt me.  
  
He was over his surprise in half a second. Harlan had taught him some martial arts basics in the past few months, and Radu, instead of blindly swinging with a closed fist, found himself bring one booted foot up to knee level and then swiftly kick the woman, Xenia, in the face.  
  
Surprised, Xenia fell backwards. he hurt me! she thought.  
  
"Strong, huh! You still don't have a chance."  
  
In a second Xenia was back on her feet, jumping up like Radu had seen Harlan do. She kicked Radu in the stomach, using her full weight against him, and he stumbled back again.  
  
Again, he kicked her in the face. This time, however, she grabbed his foot and swiftly pulled his 200 pounds off the ground, only for him to slam into the concrete. She kicked him once in the ribs, once in the face, while he lay on the ground, and then he grabbed her the way she had grabbed him and sent her sprawling on her back. By the time Radu had gotten back up, aching from hitting the ground and from Xenia's steel-toed boots, she too had recovered. Radu noted with some satisfaction that her face was bleeding (and most likely bruised badly, although he couldn't see anything in that perfect black skin). They fought, standing, trading punch for punch, kick for kick, evenly matched, for several minutes, and Radu was surprised to find himself tiring.  
  
Why doesn't she use the gun? he suddenly thought. His thoughts were cut off abruptly by a punch in the face that whipped his head to the side. When he turned around she had retreated to a distance of about ten feet.  
  
"You're a good match," she said, grinning, eyes glowing. "But I can't waste my time anymore."  
  
That evil grin grew wider as she pulled on the case around her neck. The bottom part of the case turned out to be a handle: attached to the handle was a thin, inch-long blade. She threw the needle-knife at Radu with deadly precision.  
  
Radu might have been strong... but he was not nearly fast enough to stop a projectile traveling that fast. He felt a sharp cutting pain in his stomach for a split second; then it was replaced by a numbing sensation, like anesthesia. Then the sedative that Xenia had loaded into the needle-knife cut into his bloodstream and Radu dropped like a corpse shoved out a window.  
  
[pic] 


	7. Part 6 - Medusa

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Six: Medusa  
  
Radu woke from the drug's effect a few hours before dawn. He found himself strapped to a chair, metal, with metal ties, and he knew without trying that after being drugged so powerfully he would not be able to break them. His work clothes from yesterday were folded and apparently washed about ten feet from him. He looked around, seeing a bare room with two walls missing. The floor also ended where those walls should have been.  
  
I'm in a loft, he thought. Like a giant shelf. I've seen these things in the warehouses, usually used to store more expensive materials. I guess I'm in a warehouse, can't be too far from where that woman attacked me.  
  
Radu couldn't for the life of him orient himself well enough to tell where he was in comparison to the rest of the city. His head just wasn't working well enough.  
  
Think, Radu... That woman will probably be back, if she decided to take you prisoner. She seemed pretty insane so who knows what kind of plans she has for me. I don't think she's ever seen an Andromedan before, though, so maybe that's her weak spot. She didn't know about my hearing and probably doesn't know about my sense of direction. Maybe I can-  
  
"Ah, my friend has finally awoken from his nap." That high-pitched, unnerving voice echoed through the warehouse and through the loft area. Xenia appeared at the edge of the loft by the wall, climbing up by way of a ladder. Radu was in the corner. A table was near the end of the wall farther from the ladder. The loft was otherwise empty.  
  
"What do you want from me?" Radu had wanted his voice to come out demanding and powerful, like Harlan's: instead he sounded like he had on his first day of Starcademy.  
  
"Oh, dear, let's not stall. I want your body, and don't think I want it *that* way either. Let's hurry now... you need to be home soon."  
  
Xenia's hands, Radu noticed, were now ungloved. He couldn't imagine what she wanted to do to him.  
  
"Now this won't hurt, actually. I'm not saying you won't be screaming at the end, though." Xenia walked over to the table and picked up a razor blade, and with two quick movements, cut the palm of her right hand in an X, deep enough to sink the razor blade in about a half an inch. Radu watched her with horror as she repeated the same motion on her left hand and put the razor blade back down. Her hands dripped blood, but just a very small amount.  
  
From her cut hands came the tendrils. Each about a third of an inch in diameter, thirty or forty of them total, all moving. Xenia looked like some horrible alien Medusa, with snakes coming from her hands instead of head. She approached Radu who was silent with fear.  
  
I am going to die, he thought.  
  
The tendrils snaked over his body, each pointing toward a different place: on his face, his chest, his back, his arms and legs, everywhere, and when the tendrils made a connection they pierced the skin with an almost anesthetic affect, for Radu could see them sticking out of his body but not feel them. Xenia had been right, however, because Radu did want to scream.  
  
She stopped. "Now, I become you," she said. As she sad the words the pulling sensation began, as if Radu's body was being sucked into those tendrils. He felt hot, and vaguely recalled this devil's imp saying that yes, she was converting the fat and tissue in his body into their basic building blocks and consuming him, she was taking the DNA from his body, she was taking his body itself. And then she pulled back and the tendrils disconnected from Radu's body and he slumped forward in his chair for he felt that all of the life had been drained from him and *she* stood in front of him, watching.  
  
"Still alive? Incredible. I took more than seventy pounds of your body, do you know that, food item? Look at yourself."  
  
Radu looked. His ribs were visible, his arms and legs anorexically thin.  
  
"You won't be going anywhere. I suppose I can come back later and finish you off, but first I'm going to have to lose some of this Meridian's mass. I think a good amputation will do me a little good, eh, snack? Your DNA is better, and I need to be you by dawn. I'll be back, dear."  
  
She left. Not by the ladder. She jumped the fifty feet to the ground. Radu heard her hit, bones cracking, membranes rupturing, but ten minutes later she was walking away, with a step that sounded unnervingly like his own.  
  
[pic]  
  
"Guys? Is anyone home? Knock Knock!"  
  
Harlan answered the outside door to his room. "Radu? Do you have any idea what time it is? We've been worried as hell about you! Where were you, man!"  
  
Harlan pulled Xenia into the room by the arm.  
  
"I'm sorry, Harlan... I ran into some trouble down by the warehouses. Some Meridian woman, beautiful body, but she must have been nuts because she nearly killed me! But she ran away after a while. She cut up my hands, but they'll be all right in a while. I had them bandaged."  
  
Xenia held up his hands to Harlan, which were covered with white bandages. I guess Radu decided to take his gloves off when he got hurt, thought Harlan.  
  
"Hey man, I'm sorry I got mad at you. I didn't even think you might have run into trouble."  
  
"It's all right... uh.."  
  
"Harlan?"  
  
"Yeah, sorry Harlan, I hit my head kind of hard on the concrete."  
  
"Hey, maybe you should have Rosie scan you, after that concussion you got during the crash? A few internal checks just to make sure Radu is still good on the inside huh? Not past the expiration date?"  
  
"No... I'll be fine. Can I get a copy of my key, by the way? I think I lost mine in that fight."  
  
"Yeah sure... heh, the people who own this rathole don't care if half of Toloch has their keys."  
  
[pic]  
  
The key. Radu still had his key.  
  
He remembered Rosie telling him that he left his key everywhere and would lose it without her.  
  
"Hide it on your person, Radu," she had said. "Somewhere that you won't lose it."  
  
It was in his hair. Tied to the bottom of a few strands near the back of his head, hidden by the rest of his hair. With his hands tied behind him, he just might be able to reach it... but he was so tired.  
  
Of course you are tired... she sucked a third of your body mass out of you  
  
Got it. A small key, metal... with a jagged edge. The cables he was tied with were metal also, but not solid. They were twisted metal strands, and he bet those strands could be broken.  
  
[pic]  
  
In his weakened condition, it took Radu almost an hour to cut the ties on his hands. With his hands free, he went about sawing at the cables around his shoulders and upper body that were holding him to the chair. Next, he freed his ankles and legs, but he left the belt of cable around his waist for last, fearing that he would fall forward out of the chair and not be able to get up if he didn't have something holding him to it. So that cable was the last one he cut before standing up, shakily, and looking around the loft.  
  
He was wearing only his underwear. Prime Embarrassment Number One. He knew he would have to get out soon, before Xenia came back. From the dim interior of the warehouse, Radu could not tell what time of day it was, but it had to be mid-morning at least. His work clothes were not at the edge of the platform any more, so that horrible creature must have taken them.  
  
Carefully, Radu climbed down the fifty-foot ladder to the floor of the warehouse. It was apparently abandoned, a huge boxy building with old rusted metal crates stacked around the walls. Under the platform's edge, Radu found a large bloody spot and also Xenia's clothes and armor from the night before. And the gun she had not used.  
  
Radu was a sorry sight in Xenia's clothes. The shiny, skintight plastic was loose and a foot too long on Radu's short, starved frame. He looked weird, to say the least.  
  
I'm starving, he thought. I'll stop by at Harlan's work and get a burger or ten. Then I'll find out if that woman really has taken on my identity.  
  
[pic] 


	8. Part 7 - Alien Fast Food

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Seven: Alien Fast Food  
  
After seven weeks working in an alien fast-food place, Harlan had seen some strange people. He had seen a few Meridians, who were beautiful people, with smooth dark skin and bright hair and tall, lithe bodies. He had seen any number of Derezians: ones with pink skin, ones with white skin (which wasn't what Harlan called "white," which was really cream-colored, but actually white like a sheet of paper), ones with light blue skin, a few with purple skin. They had hair of every color humans had, and also anything you could pick out from Catalina's head. Harlan had seen dozens of tourists of all races, even Spung, who Harlan realized after a while were only there for the food and the city and were not going to kill anyone. Still, Harlan could not believe his eyes when he saw Radu come into what he called "McDonald's."  
  
Radu was death-white and his face was noticeably thinner. His cheek bones stood out noticeably from the rest of his face. He was wearing excessively cuffed black plastic pants that were way too big on him, along with a black plastic shirt that was probably made to be skin-tight but definitely wasn't on Radu. Strapped to his hip was one mean-looking gun.  
  
The other people in the fast-food place didn't even take notice of Radu.  
  
Radu walked up to Harlan's line, which for once was empty. Mid-morning was as slow as it ever got in the place, which wasn't very.  
  
"Hi Harlan," said Radu. His voice was very quiet and he gripped the counter as if it were holding him up.  
  
"God, what happened to you Radu!"  
  
"I'll tell you... in a second. I've got to eat something or I am going to pass out, Harlan."  
  
"Sure, look Radu, go sit down and I'll be with you in five minutes."  
  
"Thanks Harlan."  
  
[pic]  
  
An alien some-kind-of-meat burger on a some-kind-of-grain bun is not the best thing in the world to an Andromedan. Nonetheless, Radu ate three of them before he said a word to Harlan.  
  
"You're not going to believe this," he said to Harlan. "I think I finally know what Hell's like, and I don't believe in your Human religions." He held up his hands to show his disbelief.  
  
"Hey-" interrupted Harlan. "What happened to your hands?"  
  
"What?" asked Radu, completely thrown off track.  
  
"When you came in to my room at *three in the morning* you told me that some woman had cut your hands last night in a fight and you had gone and gotten them bandaged. So what's the deal, was that story B.S.?"  
  
Radu stared at him like he had taken a gun out and had it pointed at his head. He felt dizzy.  
  
"Hey man, whoa!" Harlan ran around to the other side of their booth just in time to grab Radu before he pitched forward onto the table. "Radu... what's the matter? You look horrible, and..." Harlan's grip wrapped almost all the way around Radu's upper arm.  
  
"Oh my God, what happened."  
  
Radu told him. About how he had fought with the woman in the street and how she had knocked him out with that sedative. Radu told him about her hand- cutting and tendrils, and about how she had somehow siphoned the life right out of him. Radu told him about how he had used the key to the motel room to cut the cables he was tied with, and how the woman had jumped off of the platform and walked away sounding like him.  
  
"Harlan, you told me that you saw me this morning and that I had cut hands... and that I had no key. That wasn't me, Harlan, it was that woman, Xenia. I think she is going to come back to the motel, Harlan... what if she wants to kill everyone?"  
  
"Calm down, Radu. Have some more of your alien-burgers. When we get back - and we will go back - I'll have Rosie set you up on an IV for a while. We'll get her, Radu. Don't worry, we'll take care of it, we've dealt with doubles before."  
  
Somehow, Radu wasn't convinced.  
  
[pic]  
  
"Dear cable-cutting snack food,  
  
"That was a nice little trick you pulled, escaping from the loft. Well, we can't have that, can we. By now I am sure you have told at least one of your friends about me and what I can do. Well, I have a surprise for you, too. I came back to the warehouse to find *you* gone... You come back to your motel room to find your pink, hot-blooded girlfriend gone. It was too easy, life force. All I had to do was punch her once and she was completely out. You come back to me, ALONE, and I will let you take her place. "I love you Radu." Yeah, and I bet you love her too. If you ever want to see her alive again, or weighing more than ten pounds, I'd advise you to come. I'll be watching you from the roof, skinny puppy, and if you bring anyone with you I will shoot you both like animals, and siphon your friend until there's nothing left of her but nerve and bone. Don't play with me.  
  
"Xenia"  
  
[pic]  
  
"I'm going."  
  
"You are NOT going, Radu."  
  
"Yes I am. I love Rosie and I will die for her if that's what I have to do. You should know that friendships turn into the best relationships. I've had Rosie as my best friend since the first day I set eyes on her, and I will NOT see her killed by that MONSTER!"  
  
"Radu, the last time I saw you like this you had icicles dripping off your face. Calm down."  
  
"NO!"  
  
"We'll get her back. Together."  
  
"We'll get all three of us and the rest of the crew KILLED together."  
  
"Radu, I am going with you... Besides, you're weak as it is."  
  
"Not that weak," said Radu, as he punched Harlan hard in the face. He fell without a sound. Radu managed to lift him into his own bed with some difficulty, and scrawled a note for Harlan.  
  
"Harlan  
  
"I am sorry I had to punch you out like that. You don't know what this person can do. I am going to get Rosie away from her. If I am not back by the time it gets dark, then get as many guns as you can, get the entire crew in full body armor, and go find us at the tenth warehouse from the river, the largest one on Halorn Street. If you come before then Xenia will kill you.  
  
"Goodbye  
  
"-Radu"  
  
[pic] 


	9. Part 8 - Bounce

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Eight: Bounce  
  
Radu walked down Halorn Street, wearing nothing but his work clothes. No weapons, no armor. Surely Xenia would let an innocent go in exchange for him.  
  
Radu was wrong. Xenia shot him with the same needle-knife she had used the night before, and that was the beginning and the end of the battle.  
  
He strung Radu to a chair next to Rosie, who was not hurt. Rosie's bonds were not a metal but a crystal with a lock, and Radu was ready to bet they were a synthetic network solid and unmeltable. Xenia tied Radu with so much cable that he could not even bend his fingers, cursing at him for getting away.  
  
"You little bastard. You screwed up my plans! I had everything perfectly planned out and YOU had to get away!" Xenia screamed at him from behind his own face, and he used Radu's own hands to slap him.  
  
"Fuck you! I'll still get what I want. There are others like me and when I find one of my friends we are going to siphon you both until you are shells. And then, my friends, we will be you."  
  
[pic]  
  
"Harlan! Are you here?"  
  
It was dark. Soon the rest of the Christa's crew would be back from their jobs.  
  
"Radu? Damn it, why did you knock me out? I would have helped you!"  
  
"I'm glad you didn't," said Xenia. He looked very disappointed... but also a lot healthier. "I went back and nobody was there. She left a note that basically said I was a sucker and that I'd never see Rosie again. I spent the rest of the day looking for Rosie... no luck."  
  
Xenia walked through the open door into Radu's room. "I'm going to sleep, Harlan. Tomorrow I am going to spend the whole day searching for her." Xenia kicked off his shoes and jumped onto the bed, which bounced with two mattresses.  
  
Harlan barely managed to keep his face calm. "Good night Radu," he said, retreating into his own room.  
  
The person in Radu's room was not Radu. Healthy looking and he bounced on the bed! Harlan remembered the first thing Radu had told him about this place... "At least your bed can hold your weight." Harlan also remembered that Radu missed hitting the bedframe by a margin of inches, even with Titania's mattress. With all that mass on a Derezian bed, Radu sank into it like it was made of chocolate pudding.  
  
Yet Radu had bounced on the mattresses, and hadn't even sunk into the first one. And he looked healthy, although Harlan could distinctly recall seeing his cheekbones sticking out that morning, and how thin his arms were... and how he was still pretty heavy for someone that thin.  
  
To bounce like that, you'd have to weigh less than a hundred pounds...  
  
[pic]  
  
Five minutes after Xenia left the motel the next morning, Harlan left too. He followed Xenia as he walked all the way to the warehouse district.  
  
It was more than an hour before Xenia left the warehouse on Halorn street, but when he did, it was with another person. Harlan barely managed to hide himself better before Xenia, along with a Derezian male, blue-skinned, walked back the way Xenia had come from. They were heading back.  
  
[pic]  
  
Radu had heard the person following Xenia, but had not known what to expect. Xenia had, indeed, left a friend of hers to watch over Radu and Rosie - a Derezian who bragged about how the person who he had siphoned last sure looked good, huh? When they had left, Radu had whispered to Rosie that he loved her... and she had stared at him like a junkie and nodded.  
  
The second person was coming in to the warehouse. Apparently Xenia never locked the door. Radu tensed as the person climbed the ladder to the loft, and cringed as he saw-  
  
Harlan Band.  
  
Radu's first thought was that they had gotten Harlan too, and this was another of *them*. He changed his mind as Harlan soundlessly took a small titanium saw from him pocket and began to work on freeing Radu.  
  
"I knew - umph - it wasn't you - because you bounced on the bed," he said. Radu actually know what he was talking about. Radu was free in five minutes.  
  
"Try cutting the chair, Harlan. The bonds won't break." Rosie stared off into space as Harlan sawed the top of the metal chair off and then sawed the legs off as well, which were welded to the floor.  
  
"Rosie? What's wrong?"  
  
"The drugs are strong, Harlan. I didn't realize it until I saw her. They also injected her with something... her temperature won't get high enough to melt that chair."  
  
"I'm ok..."  
  
Radu helped Rosie get up. "Let's get out of here," he said, "Before they come back."  
  
Harlan helped get Rosie onto Radu's back, pulling her bound hands over his neck in case her grip failed. Thankfully, Rosie's legs had been chained separately to the legs of the chair, and the cuffs hung from her ankles.  
  
Radu and Harlan made it down the ladder and out of the warehouse district in record time, considering they were a human, a hundred-thirty pound Andromedan, and a drugged dead weight on the Andromedan's back. 


	10. Part 9 - Voice Mail

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Nine: Voice Mail  
  
The motel had one thing that came in handy when it came to a bunch of offworlders with temp jobs: it had voice mail.  
  
When Harlan, Radu, and Rosie got back to the motel rooms, searched each one (finding nobody), locked all of the doors to the outside, and picked the locks on Rosie's manacles, Harlan noticed that the voice mail light on his phone (which had all of the voice mail for everyone on it and was accessible from all eight phones) was on. This is what his messages sounded like.  
  
"Hello, this is Malok, looking for Harlan Band. Harlan, you didn't show up for your shift today. I'll need an explanation tomorrow, and it had better be good."  
  
"Radu, this is Jale from work. You haven't shown up for two days, and your girlfriend wasn't here today either. Did you two skip town? Call me back, we need you."  
  
"Seth, Teresa, I know you two are sleeping together but this is no time to play nookie hooky. You've got to call in if you're not going to show up! Get back to me or you're fired."  
  
"Bova, this is Matty from the work crew. Where are you, man? I nearly got myself fried today doing the testing in a suit. You OK? I told the boss you were sick, what gives? Call me back."  
  
"Catalina!!! Where are you! I have a million hyper kids on my hands and your little one isn't here to scream them into silence either! You've got to TELL me when you don't come in! Call me back, I really need some help here!"  
  
[pic]  
  
Radu, Rosie, and Harlan stared at the phone as the voice mail light blinked back on.  
  
"They're all out of work," Rosie said. "Those people took them, didn't they."  
  
"Yeah, Rosie... they did."  
  
"We have to get them back."  
  
"We will," said Harlan.  
  
[pic]  
  
"I want the one with the sparks," said Eithos, the Derezian with the good looks.  
  
"No," said Xenia. "Not yet. We need the rest of them, the three that AREN'T in our possession!"  
  
"I don't see why we can't kill them now, Xenia," said an attractive Malyb woman, Kyler. "Their friends will come for them whether they are dead or alive."  
  
"That is NOT true," said Xenia. "That human with the brown skin must be a telepath. He *knew* I was not his friend, and I had the disguise down perfectly. Somehow, he knew. If he is a telepath then he will be able to tell that they are dead and he will not come. And then we will NEVER get off of this planet. We need to take the bodies of all of them and pretend to be their full crew, that way we may leave this place. We can all speak up for each other, saying that we are who we are supposed to be. If you KILL THEM NOW, and we don't get the other THREE, we FAIL!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"  
  
"Well Xenia," said Kyler, "If the human is a telepath, then doesn't he already know your plan to kill all of them and take over their identities?"  
  
"It doesn't matter. If they know, they will come anyway, just to save their friends. In case they don't, I am going out now to retrieve them. Waiting will not kill you. We can't take any chances!"  
  
The seven lifestealers looked at their four charges, plus one baby, and contemplated what it would be like to get off of Derez. 


	11. Part 10 - This Means War

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Ten: This Means War  
  
Harlan, Radu, and Rosie never had to go looking for Xenia. As it turns out, Xenia came looking for them.  
  
Radu's room, where the three were grouped together, was thankfully not the one she broke into. The three jumped at the sound of a door hitting the ground in the next room.  
  
They had only a few seconds before she found them. Radu barely had time to pull Rosie from her place on the floor in front of the door before it fell in with a crash, and a fiery, black-clad Radu charged into the room.  
  
Xenia looked at them with such a look of intense hatred that it would have made them wither like old flowers had looks any power over the real world.  
  
"AH, SNACK FOOD, YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!!" he said, charging at Radu. Xenia flew through the air, one foot in front of the other, getting ready to take Radu down like he had not been able to before.  
  
Radu ducked, and Xenia flew into the wall.  
  
Radu somehow managed to get out of the way as Harlan, black belt and all, took on the meanest Andromedan he had ever seen.  
  
The gun Radu had taken the night before last was still on the floor with Xenia's clothes.  
  
Rosie stood in the corner, trying to stay out of the way. In her drugged state she was weaponless and was sure a kick like Xenia's first would kill her. Radu ran up and stood in front of her with the gun, waiting for Harlan to get out of the way.  
  
"Harlan MOVE!" he yelled, and surprisingly, Harlan did. He backflipped away from the fight in half a second, and another second later Radu had opened fire on Xenia.  
  
The gun he had taken from her was automatic and fired one shot after the other, riddling Xenia's body with bullets. After a few seconds he stopped. Xenia was slumped on the floor like a rag doll... but was still breathing.  
  
Radu watched in horror as Xenia stood up and looked him in the face. "Missed me," he said. Blood dripped from his gunshot wounds onto the bare floor.  
  
"I won't this time," said Radu. He raised the gun to that face, the face that looked just like his, and pulled the trigger.  
  
It took about three seconds for Xenia's head to disappear entirely, leaving a bloody jawbone and part of a skull behind. He fell.  
  
They thought he was dead for at least half a minute... and them something happened. Out of the neck, where all that had been was bloody gore, came a legion of tendrils like the ones Xenia had used on Radu. They grew, twisted, formed facial features, and stayed there for a minute, while the Rosie, Harlan, and Radu watched with morbid fascination. The tendrils retreated, leaving a bloody, skinless face and head in their place, and then the skin grew back too. With the skin came hair, short though, since a disguise was no longer needed. Xenia had regenerated his entire head and face.  
  
He stood up and faced them.  
  
"This means war," he said. "You can't kill me, you don't know how. We have your friends. You stay here, they die. You go to save them, and you die with them. The end will not change, only the means. I can survive in a body that weighs twenty pounds if I need to, and that body will be strong and as tough as solid titanium. If somebody tested my DNA right now, I would register as you, Mister Radu, if that is your name. There are six more like me, and your friends are far more powerless than you were. You will not survive this."  
  
He walked out, and nobody followed. 


	12. Part 11 - Seeds

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Eleven: Seeds  
  
"We can't take them alone. We are going to need help. I say we call the police. I know we have no right to protection here, since we are offworlders... but we might as well try. We've got to save the rest of our crew."  
  
"You're right, Rosie. We are so used to doing things on our own that we never even contacted the police. We're going to need some help."  
  
[pic]  
  
"Lifestealers. That's what we call them. We've hunted them for years, with no luck... you can't even tell when someone is a lifestealer unless you scan them deep and get lucky finding the seed inside."  
  
"Seed?" asked Radu. He, as well as Harlan and Rosie, stood in the office of the only police officer on Derez who would listen to them. It seemed that Derez's motto was "if you come here with no money and take ours, and in the meantime have no citizenship, then we won't bother you as long as you don't bother us." The only reason that this guy was helping them, they realized, was because he had a personal vendetta against the lifestealers.  
  
"The true body of a lifestealer starts off as a tiny brain casing, about a two-inch sphere. The first body of their species is a humanoid similar to a Derezian, except the head is much smaller since the brain is in the torso, in the seed. The way they evolved gave them the tendrils in order to feed off other animals. They are the other native sentient species on this planet. Normally, their species is peaceful and an ally to Derezians. Once in a while, a mutation occurs which leads them to produce an offspring with molecular psychokinetic power over its own cells. This is a metamorph, or a lifestealer. Because a lifestealer can manipulate its own body, it can shapeshift into whatever it pleases, which normally isn't much. However, these mutants can also assimilate the DNA of others into their own bodies, sometimes draining another creature of all of its mass entirely. They starve their victims. Once a lifestealer has the DNA of another person, it can become that person all the way down to the molecular level.  
  
"Normally, when a child of the species is born with this power, he or she is taught from birth to be careful and that he or she has the potential to kill. Sometimes, one of those children decides not to listen... it's usually the homicidal, psychotic ones. That child grows up to be what you have run into.  
  
"Their motive is obvious: they saw you as a way to get off of this planet. Crews of less than seven are always subjected to deep scans before being allowed to leave the planet to make sure they are not carrying a lifestealer among their crew. Crews of seven or more are questioned and any suspicious characters are also scanned. This group intends to take over your ship."  
  
"Will you help us?" asked Radu.  
  
"Help you? No! We don't have the personnel to go get ourselves killed for offworlders. I'd love to see these lifestealers put to justice, but I've seen too many good men killed by one. All I can say is, if you destroy the seed, you destroy the mind. That's all I can say."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
[pic] 


	13. Part 12 - Siege

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Twelve: Siege  
  
"Here's the plan. One, body armor. Lots of it. Rosie, that's your job. Stay in well-lit areas and stay heated up. You're back to normal, right?"  
  
"Yeah Harlan."  
  
"Two: weapons. Radu, you're in charge of that one. We are going to need seven fully automatic weapons that can hold at least five hundred rounds. Do the same as Rosie and take the gun with you. Get some like it if you can."  
  
"I've got it."  
  
"Three: ammunition. That guy at the police station said that they carry a brain case. According to you, Radu, the first time you ran into this Xenia person she was wearing body armor on the chest and torso only, right?"  
  
"Yes... I think that's where they keep their brain case."  
  
"I think so too... so I am going to get bullets that explode on impact. Deadly, and they take out a lot of tissue. We'll be able to vaporize them. Let's go, and we meet back here in an hour."  
  
[pic]  
  
"When they come in, we gas them. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. We gas them and we keep them alive. They are going to be desperate and desperate people have a way of finding things out, so keep yourself covered. Whatever you do, don't go down to the warehouse floor. Stay up here with the hostages. They will have a lot less incentive to fire on us if their friends are in the way."  
  
[pic]  
  
"They'll probably try to get us with a long-distance weapon, like trank darts or gas. The armor I got has 30-minute oxygen canisters in the helmet, so if you think they are going to gas you, shut your breathing holes and turn on the air conditioning."  
  
"As for the warehouse, we'll try to bring them down to our level. I've been trapped in that loft twice already and I'm pretty sure that's where they'll be holding our friends. While you two go in the front door, I am going to scale the wall on the outside of the warehouse and try to get onto the loft from the roof. When I get there I'll try to push as many as I can off the platform, but you guys have to watch them. I fought Xenia at my full strength and she was a match for me blow for blow. Use your guns, not your fists."  
  
[pic]  
  
"Use your guns, guys. Not your fists. And Ethios! Stop looking at the firebug! Do you want him to have a heart attack and die! NOT YET!"  
  
[pic]  
  
They say the darkest hour is just before dawn. I've always thought that the darkest hour is midnight in the warehouse district, when you and two of your friends, weak and beaten, march steadily forward to certain death. I don't believe that we will survive this siege, but I will die trying to save my family. I say family because that's what they are, maybe not through blood, but through sweat and tears and devotion. We've spilled enough blood in this journey to make us all brothers and sisters twice over, and tonight the people I walk with and the people I walk toward are my family. I never had a family before, and if I have to, I will give them my life.  
  
[pic]  
  
"Before I climb this wall... I want you guys to know I love you both. I hope I see you on the other side of this battle."  
  
"Thanks Radu. Let's go."  
  
Radu began to climb. The outside wall of the warehouse was brick, with adequate space between the bricks to grab a good hold. Radu had no place to put his feet, and so he climbed with his hands only, the toes of his boots and the kneepads of his body armor scraping the wall as he inched up the first of sixty-five feet.  
  
[pic]  
  
It all seemed to happen in slow motion when it did. Rosie and Harlan burst in through the double doors at the same time, marching into the lair of the demons.  
  
They stood at the edge of the platform, looking down.  
  
"You can't beat us... you might as well join us! Your bodies, anyway. Gas them, Ethios," said Xenia, turning her back on the two below and walking to where the platform would hide her from any bullets.  
  
The blue-skinned Ethios took the lid off of a five-gallon bucket of liquid and spilled it over the side of the platform. The liquid splashed over the cold floor, vaporizing on contact.  
  
Harlan and Rosie closed their helmets. Half an hour.  
  
[pic]  
  
Thirty more feet. Thirty to the roof.  
  
[pic]  
  
"Come on down here and fight!" yelled Harlan through his helmet. He doubted that the aliens could hear him anyway. He realized his mistake had been turning the oxygen on: they had twenty- five minutes to go and if they climbed that ladder they were dead as soon as they reached the top.  
  
[pic]  
  
Radu placed one armor-plated hand over the roof's ledge. He saw what he wanted: the door to the loft. Sending a silent prayer to whoever was listening, Radu wrenched the door open and jumped in.  
  
"You! I knew you were somewhere around here, snack food!" yelled Xenia, still wearing his face. A quick look around told Radu that fate had landed him in a good spot: His crew, bound and their mouths duct-taped shut on one side, the lifestealers in a row on the other side. He opened fire and sent three of them off the platform at once. Another set of shots and three more were gone, leaving Xenia and him alone at the top.  
  
[pic]  
  
As soon as Harlan heard the shots, he knew Radu had hit paydirt. The falling bodies of three, then three more of what he took to be lifestealers (all different species on the outside) assured him that Radu had made it to the top.  
  
Rosie and Harlan opened fire on the lifestealers, cutting them down. Huge holes appeared in them but closed almost as fast as they were formed, tendrils flying over open wounds.  
  
A Derezian lifestealer advanced on Rosie. I know him, she thought. He's the one who drugged me. Lowering her gun, Rosie let loose all of the heat energy she could muster from her left hand, directly into the torso of Ethios. He screamed shortly and then fell, a hole in his middle going clear through to his back. Harlan fired several rounds into him and this time the tendrils did not come to fix his wounds.  
  
"One down!" yelled Harlan. "Five to go!" He and Rosie had a system now.  
  
[pic]  
  
"So, we meet again. Are you ready to fight me one last time, snack food?"  
  
"I think you will find, right before I kill you, that it was a bad idea to call me a snack food, Xenia. And also... you look like me. But I'm the real thing. See those people you have bound up there? That's my family. I thought when I came here that I would die for them tonight. But you know what. I'm not going to die."  
  
Radu fired at his double's midsection, blowing holes everywhere. Apparently it's not too easy to hit an armored seed the size of a small egg because Xenia healed as fast as he fired... until his gun was empty.  
  
Radu had four more on him. But guns were for another day.  
  
"I lost to you twice. My people have been known to tear the heads off of their enemies when they are aggravated to a certain point. Come on, lifestealer, I'm going to win this time."  
  
They fought. As before, they were evenly matched, neither getting ahead of the other for long. Radu and the demon in his form fought for their lives, trading punches in the head for kicks in the gut, smashing each other into the wall and the platform, gashing each other on sharp corners. Radu grabbed Xenia by the upper arms and pressed him into the wall. Slid his hands down to Xenia's wrists and spreadeagled him there. Stepped on his feet and held him.  
  
Radu transferred both wrists into his left hand and help them up high. His balance was solid.  
  
"You lose, Xenia."  
  
"You can't kill me."  
  
"You can't shapeshift unless you're hurt. I knew that much when you cut your hands open. You're stuck. And I know better than to cut you now. You see, you never thought how I knew you were there when you first attacked me. I can hear everything, Xenia. Before I didn't know what to listen for, but now I do. As I speak the sound of my voice reflects off of one point in your body. A small hard spot right here." He pointed to a place on Xenia's abdomen.  
  
"You are going to die," said Xenia.  
  
"No. *You* are going to die."  
  
Radu had four guns strapped to him. He pulled one off of his hip and pointed it at Xenia... and fired. 


	14. Part 13 - Redemption, and Epilogue

Disclaimer: Please see Prologue  
  
Part Thirteen: Redemption  
  
They walked out of the warehouse a different set of people. Space Cases they were, but adults too. Leading were Radu, Harlan, and Rosie, the executors of the strike. Regret and guilt would plague them from that point on, but along with them would be triumph and the knowledge that in taking life, they had saved the lives of their friends, themselves, and every victim that the lifestealers would ever have had from then on.  
  
Behind them trailed the 'hostages.' Catalina, holding her daughter, silent. Seth and TJ, holding on to each other like there was no one else in the world. Bova, who would always think of Radu in a different light from that day, and not because he had killed Bova's captor, but because Radu had risked his life for him and called him a brother in the process.  
  
They walked into the nearest police headquarters and gave the address of the warehouse to the man with the vendetta. They left just as quickly.  
  
[pic]  
  
In the end, it took two more weeks of working to pay for the damage to the motel room, the guns and armor, and the initial debt from the crash.  
  
[pic]  
  
The crew of the Christa watched from the Command Post as the face of Derez shrank to a point in the rear view.  
  
"Aside from the hostile species, it was a nice planet," said Rosie. "There were so many different people."  
  
"Yeah... Rosie, do you feel bad about what happened?" asked Bova. "Or you, Radu? Harlan?"  
  
"I feel different," said Radu. "But saving you guys was worth it all. You are my family, the only one I ever had. Killing someone was worth keeping you alive."  
  
"Amen," said Harlan. "Besides, we've got another two and a half years of this trip. "We've got one thing to count on, and that's loyalty to each other."  
  
"You sound like me."  
  
Harlan smiled. "Yeah, I know."  
  
Epilogue  
  
Anyway... I really feel that in the five years we've been on this ship we've all gotten to be as close to each other as any real family.  
  
...  
  
Sure, there have been changes, I mean like Catalina having a *baby*... But I think that was a good choice on her part. Cat needs to have someone to take care of, someone that wants her exclusively, and I think someone who is in this dimension. And Elmira...  
  
...  
  
Well...she was right all along... Radu told me about her predictions. He's saved our collective ass more times than I can count.  
  
This trip's been hard on us, but we're working things out. I think someday soon one of us is going to have to make a decision for the sake of the group, and I'm not going to blue-sky this one: the longer our trip gets, the higher our chances are of running into something we can't handle. We all thought Catalina was dead when the Christa's sister ship went four years ago, but we were wrong. We might not be as lucky the next time around. We've faced a lot of danger and near-death situations in the past, but we've always managed to get away and then deal with the consequences and memories with some degree of flippancy... Some day we might not be that lucky.  
  
...  
  
Well, I'm not trying to be the bearer of bad news! I think, that when the day comes that this group gets into a situation we think we can't handle... we will.  
  
...  
  
Well, until next time, this is me, Seth, turning off the recorder. 


End file.
